Rebecca wrote:
>If you have your ferret taken
>into surgery, and it's like Socks' tumor-huge, absolutely positively huge
>(it had even caused the blood flow to move), and the tumor looks normal,
>would you allow your ferret to wake up from this surgery knowing that
>something this size and degree is possibly cancer?

Yes! Because in our home it has only very rarely has been a
malignancy, and even then only one in 19 years had a adrenal
malignancy spread at all. Usually in our guys they have been
adenomas which are benign or hyperplasias which also are benign, but
we have seem malignancies for which surgery was totally curative.

BTW, a balding tail can often equate to only being a skin disorder,
so should not induce panic. Even when it is not the tail going bald
sometimes there can be a different cause,though that is much less
common. We have had one who balded for what apparently were genetic
causes, and one with a very serious digestive disorder who has
apparently lost it for nourishment reasons (eats a lot but digests
little due to damage).

Oh, we use night covers to reduce light exposure, and have not had
any reduction in adrenal hyperplasias, but we have not had an adrenal
malignancy since using them, which could be only coincidence and mean
nothing as with any home setting due to low numbers and more. Don't
take that as meaning something for sure.

We are also not really prone to early adrenal growths in our home,
though we have seen ones at lower and lower ages than in earlier
years, and that is mostly among early neuters for the entire almost
two decades. Earlier we didn't see them before late 6 or older and
considered 5 young; now we have had one at about 3 and 1/2 and two in
a probable fourth year (same ferret for the fourth year, different
adrenals almost 6 months apart, our first ever to need a rapid second
surgery -- most of our's haven't even needed a second surgery let
alone a fast one).